"Sounds better than I expected," I admitted. "All right. When do I go?"
Weidmann didn't show any expression to indicate disappointment or satisfaction. He simply said, "Tonight, after we check over the details. The ship's equipped with standard TSN controls, and you'll have lots of time to test her flight characteristics once you get out in space."
"What happens if she explodes? Don't I get to test her first?"
"No—there isn't time, and it would be a dead giveaway." For the first time, I saw something like satisfaction on Weidmann's face. "And if she explodes ... well, frankly, Holcomb, that's your problem."
I spent the afternoon being briefed. One thing was off my mind—if I had official orders to take this job, then the SBI would be keeping a tab on me. It made a difference, knowing that no matter what kind of a mess I got into, somebody would at least know what had happened to me, and, most important, why.
I was given a Company flight suit, and a hip rig for my Sturmey. I put those on, and was taken to within a block of the port in a shuttered car.
Not going all the way to the spaceport was my idea. The reason I gave Weidmann was good enough—there was no sense putting up neon markers to indicate that I was up to something special—but I had a better one than that. I had to give Pat a chance to get in touch with me.
It didn't work out that way.
I began walking down toward the Transolar revetment, using a shortcut street, looking around for Pat. It was a cinch she'd had some kind of a tail on me, and I was expecting to see her step out of almost any of the doorways I passed.